Fly Around, My Pretty Little Miss

DESCRIPTION: Dance tune: "Fly around my pretty little miss/Fly around my daisy/Fly around my pretty little miss/You almost drive me crazy." Floating verses: "The higher up the cherry tree/The riper grow the cherries..." "Going to get some weevily wheat..."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1917 (collected by Cecil Sharp, but some of the floating verses also show up in Sharp-EnglishFolkSongsFromSouthernAppalachians 88, "Betty Anne," which he collected in 1916)
KEYWORDS: love dancing nonballad floatingverses dancetune
FOUND IN: US(Ap,SE,So)
REFERENCES (12 citations):
Cohen/Seeger/Wood-NewLostCityRamblersSongbook, p. 66, "Fly Around, My Pretty Little Miss" (1 text, 1 tune)
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 286, "Fly Around, My Blue-Eyed Girl" (4 texts, but the "D" text is mostly "Shady Grove"); also 78, "Coffee Grows on White Oak Trees" (7 texts plus 1 excerpt and mention of 1 more, but almost all mixed -- all except "H" have the "Coffee grows" stanza, but "A" also has verses from "Fly Around, My Pretty Little Miss"; "and "C" through "H" are mostly "Little Pink"; "B" is mixed with "Raccoon" or some such)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore5 286, "Fly Around, My Blue-Eyed Girl" (4 tunes plus text excerpts)
Hudson-FolksongsOfMississippi 145, p. 293, [no title] (1 fragment, the single stanza "The higher up the cherry tree")
Sharp-EnglishFolkSongsFromSouthernAppalachians 268, "The Higher Up the Cherry Tree" (1 short text, 1 tune); also 88, "Betty Anne" (1 text, 1 tune, with lyrics from "Shady Grove," "Fly Around, My Pretty Little Miss" and "Going Across the Sea")
Gentry/Smith-ASingerAmongSingers, #63, "The Higher Up the Cherry Tree" (1 fragment, 1 tune, possibly this)
Roberts-SangBranchSettlers, #72, "Blue-Eyed Girl" (1 text, 1 tune)
Owens-TexasFolkSongs-1ed, pp. 197-198, "My Pretty Little Pink" (1 text, 1 tune)
Killion/Waller-ATreasuryOfGeorgiaFolklore,p. 227, "Higher Up the Cherry Tree" (1 fragment, probably this)
Darling-NewAmericanSongster, p. 254, "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss" (1 text)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 39, "Fly Around My Blue-Eyed Gal" (1 text)
DT, BLUEYEGL*
Roud #5720 and 3648
RECORDINGS:
Frank Blevins & his Tar Heel Rattlers, "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss" (Columbia 15210-D, 1927; on TimesAint01, LostProv1)
Frank Bode, "Susanna Gal" (on FBode1)
Samantha Bumgarner, "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss" (Columbia 146-D, 1924; Harmony 5094 [as Luella Gardner], n.d.)
The Hillbillies, "Blue Eyed Girl" (Vocalion 5017, c. 1926)
Clint Howard et al, "Pretty Little Pink" (on Ashley02, WatsonAshley01)
Buell Kazee, "Dance Around My Pretty Little Miss" [fragment] (on Kazee01)
Bradley Kincaid, "Pretty Little Pink" (Brunswick 464, 1930) ((Supertone 9666, 1930; rec. 1929) (one of these is on CrowTold01, but we don't know which)
New Lost City Ramblers, "Fly Around, My Pretty Little Miss" (on NLCR03, NLCR11, NLCRCD1)
Lee Sexton, "Fly Around, My Pretty Little Miss" (on MMOKCD)
Hobart Smith, "Fly Around, My Blue-Eyed Girl" (on LomaxCD1702)
Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers, "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss" (Columbia 15709-D, c. 1931; rec. 1928)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Weevily Wheat" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Coffee Grows (Four in the Middle)" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Up and Down the Railroad Track" (floating lyrics)
cf. "I Want to Go Back to Georgia" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Missus in the Big House" (meter)
cf. "Seventeen Come Sunday" [Laws O17] (floating lyrics, some tunes)
cf. "Yonder Comes a Georgia Girl" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Watermelon Spoilin' On The Vine" (floating verses)
cf. "Pretty Little Miss (II)" (lyrics, theme)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Blue-Eyed Girl
NOTES [78 words]: My guess is that this is a modified version of "Weevily Wheat." But Paul Stamler thinks it's separate, and certainly it's picked up a lot of floating material. So we classify the two separately.
This should not be confused with Laws P18, "Pretty Little Miss."
Roud seems to split this into two, #5720 being true "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss" versions and #3648 being "Higher Up the Cherry Tree" texts. I see his point, but this makes fragments hard to classify! - RBW
Last updated in version 6.4
File: CSW066

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